They call me the ladies man

I found her on the Internet. It is my first time meeting her in real life. The apartment is massive; well, she lives here with eight guys, so it's gotta be huge. She isn't here yet, so I am greeted by one of her friends: a skinny guy, with shoulder length greasy black hair, a short beard, and glasses, wearing baggy old clothes. He takes me to sit down and we talk for a while, but I feel out of place. I only care to meet her.

I persevere; eventually she arrives, along with more of her friends. She is short and pretty skinny. And pretty. She has medium length blonde and pink hair, and she's wearing a black and pink flannel outfit. Everyone sits down with us, and she sits close beside me, invading my personal space bubble. I could kiss her, but that would be awkward with all these guys here. I wonder how many of them have kissed her? They are talk amongst themselves, while I talk with her. I say stupid things in stupid voices, but she doesn't seem to notice.

Some people get up and go to another room to do drugs. Uh oh, I realize I don't have any and get up. She stands beside me, still so close that I can't shake this feeling of intimacy. I think about kissing her, but smile instead. She smiles back. I see us from outside of my own body; not only have I been sounding like a dork, but my hair is completely messed up. I quickly leave by myself to find a washroom to use a mirror. I get there and see that the front of my hair is spread apart to the sides, revealing sparse hair and a nearly-bald scalp. I wet my hands and mess up my hair with water, then smooth it forward to hide the baldness. It works ok for now, I just hope it doesn't go back after it dries out. I notice huge gobs of eye goop in the corners of my eyes; I wipe it off with my hands and put on my bright blue reflective sunglasses. Wet hair and sunglasses, the look of a cool person. Time to go back to everyone, back to her.

I return to the now empty living room, wondering where they have gone. One of her friends approaches from behind; he is a short, fat, middle aged Mongolian, completely bald on the top of his head, and wearing an open shirt that exposes his gut. He is gets drugs from some containers on a small table, and I ask if I should do the same. He says yes, but tells me to weigh them out. They sell the drugs, but I'll just pay for them later. After he is done getting his, I take a look in the containers. One of them has strange blue hockey puck shaped cakes of different sizes, with smiley faces drawn on them. I assume that these are hash cakes. I grab a small one to weigh out, but a huge one falls on the floor and shatters. Embarrassed, I put the small one back in the container and scoop the pieces into my hands. The strange looking scale has a tiny metal cup to place things in for weighing, so I can't weigh everything at once. I put as many of the chunks into the metal cup as I can. The scale says 7.5. I hope I don't lose a lot of money over this...

Suddenly, everyone funnels back into the room, and she is again beside me. She sees what I have done; I feel stupid for breaking the cake, but still just want to kiss her softly. She takes the broken bits from my hands, and I notice that the inside of the cake is actually a compacted white powder. I wonder if it is a hash cake at all, and why I thought so in the first place, but am immediately distracted from my thoughts as she produces a large flask of clear liquid, labelled "methanol". She uses a glass pasteur pipette to suck up some of the methanol, and mixes it with the broken up cake which now looks like a pile of white powder. White feathery swirls appear in the methanol as it absorbs the powder, but they go away when the absorption is finished. She sucks up this methanol with the pipette and puts it into another flask. It is a fascinating process to watch, I hadn't known that you could handle drugs this way.

"There." she says, "Now you can do these drugs. There probably isn't too much methanol left in them."

I dryly reply, "Good. It's not like methanol makes you blind."



I emerge from my mind fog. I'm sitting on a bed in a bedroom of a small apartment. My step-brother Christian is with me, sitting on a rocking chair with a small black dog on his lap. We're chatting about something, when a woman comes in. She isn't particularly good looking, but I get the impression that she is a PhD student. She is tall with black hair, wearing glasses. I say something funny and everyone laughs. She leaves the room, and we follow her shortly after.

If this is Christian's apartment, then he must have gotten a better job to afford it. We walk into an open kitchen area with brand new furniture and several people just chilling out. I take a seat at the table, just as the dog pees on the floor. I get up from my chair and walk across the floor with the intention of reporting the pee to Christian, being as careful as I possibly can to not step in the pee yet somehow still getting perilously close to dipping my socks in it. I go over to tell Christian that he should take the dog outside, but he tells me that the owner is very strict about how often it can go outside. I ask how much he gets paid for taking care of the dog as he dials his big blocky cell phone to call the owner. He says I don't want to know, but after a moment adds that he is getting paid an air force commission for it. Not entirely sure what to make of that, I decide it means that someone in the air force is paying him all their money to take care of this dog.

While he is chatting on the phone, trying to find out if he is allowed to take the dog out to pee, I notice my sister across the room. Suddenly she has a seizure and starts falling over against a table. Her skin turns white and she is dripping sweat. A sick feeling of terror rises in my body and I rush over. I hold her up as she stares straight ahead, and I frantically tell Christian to call 911. He immediately hangs up on his client and calls. Other people are gathering around her too now. It seems she is becoming aware again, and she mumbles something to me, but I get the horrible feeling that she is about to die in my arms. I tell her I love her, and kiss her on her blood-drained cheek, through the wet hair sticking to her face with sweat. I close my eyes.

In a voice that is not hers, she lets me know that she is fine. As I open my eyes and pull back from her face, I am shocked to see that a purple crystalline horn has sprouted from her forehead, curving upwards to the sky. Her face is caved in at the middle and her skin glows gold, giving her the appearance of a demonic alien. A powerful desire for this strange creature washes over me. I kiss her on the lips and my arms snake around her waist and find their way to her ass.



The ambulance arrives; a 747 jet with flashing lights on top. We are outside on the tarmac under a darkened night sky, and I am helping a girl with light brown skin and dark hair up the stairs to the door. She has striking blue eyes and is wearing baggy black gothic pants and a black tank top. She seems perfectly fine, except that one of her hands is a lumpy grey club made of something like ash. The flight attendant stops us at the entrance; the girl cannot ride with the other passengers.

We find ourselves in a chamber deep within the center of the airplane. It is as tall as it is wide, but very long, and the surfaces are flat and sharp, made of shiny white blocks stuck together with black glue. There are no doors, and it is bright despite the absence of any lights. Crawford is here with another patient, who is mostly covered with a dull green sheet and strapped down to a stretcher. The atmosphere is one of nervousness; everyone is fidgeting but nobody says a word. The jet suddenly begins moving, and Crawford loses it. "We're going down!" he exclaims, even though the feeling of acceleration tells me we haven't lifted off yet. There we go, I feel the plane angle upwards as it rises from the ground. "It's going to crash!" he cries, causing the two patients to become noticeably more anxious. "Can you hear people screaming? I can hear them screaming that we're going down!" he wails. Trying my best to ignore it, I feel helpless inside this chamber. It doesn't feel right, as if the back of the plane is falling downwards. The fear starts to get to me. I leave my body and get a glimpse of the plane from the outside.

The sky is blue and we're flying over a city, but the plane is completely upside down and curving its way downwards, towards a busy highway! The pilot keeps pulling the plane around and we find ourselves right side up, flying just a few meters off the ground. What a dangerous way to turn the plane around, I think. Why wouldn't he just take off in the opposite direction in the first place, or at least turn the plane around by going left or right. Planes are incredibly dangerous compared to flying carpets.



I'm on my flying carpet now. It is dark out, and I'm flying precariously along a harbour parking lot, floating up and down as I very slowly make my way along a strip of buildings and parking lots, avoiding power lines and road signs. Flying carpets aren't like you imagine. Mine is a small, flimsy, thin square of navy blue cloth; it doesn't look like anything special. It's just large enough to sit on cross legged, but the damnest thing is that I have to keep my balance or I'll fall over. It's like riding in a canoe in that respect. It's really slow too; I could walk just as fast, but there's something about riding a flying carpet...

Up and down and forward, wobbling to and fro, my scanning eyes inspect the debris laying scattered across this abandoned landscape. A skinny brown cat chases after an empty bag of potato chips. I see an old clunky black telephone laying on the ground, and it rings as I pass by. Hovering over the dirty grass I pick up the phone and press the button. It is a christian on the other end, oh brother. He spews about 15 seconds of his opening spiel before I politely interrupt and tell him I don't believe in any of that. "Why?" he asks, feigning incredulity yet obviously used to the response. "Well there simply isn't any reliable evidence that any of it is true." I hear him start into whatever tired nonsense he has memorized as I hit the button again. Now, sally forth on my carpet!

I go a ways further before seeing a large and interesting looking two piece sign standing in front of and between two of the buildings on the strip. I step off the carpet and stretch my legs, yawn, and rub my eyes. I start going into the building on the left, but then stop abruptly and read the half of the sign that corresponds to it. The words are big and strange looking, but make sense. However, when I look away I cannot remember the words, just like looking at a watch and then realizing you still don't know what time it is. I look again; although I don't remember the first meaning, I swear that the words are different this time. After two more confusing attempts to read the sign, I give up and go into the other building instead. The letters on that half of the sign aren't as colourful or interesting, but they clearly tell me what lies within: a women's health center.

I'm walking up some stairs with metal railing that wind their way around a hollow square room towards a wooden door at the top. The walls are wood too, and dirty; not the kind of place you would expect a health center to be. I'm walking quickly as usual, but find myself stuck behind two women who are slowly trudging their way towards the door. They have what I would call a pentecostal look to them: they're both wearing jean skirts that go down to their ankles, and have long dirty blonde hair. Both are plump and neither is particularly attractive. One turns her head slightly, giving me a suspicious look from behind her glasses, but she doesn't say anything to me. They go through the door and I follow, feeling only slightly creepy.

The health center is much nicer on the other side of the door. A short set of stairs leads down to a wide hallway with lockers and cabinets lining the walls between doors to large rooms filled with desks and chairs. The surfaces are metallic blue and grey, and the lighting is comfortably mild. I sense people in the rooms leading off from the hallway, but see only one new person. She is a tall and pretty lady, with curly shoulder length brown hair and dark eyes. She is wearing a very light summer dress that reveals almost all of her legs, and a significant portion of her large round breasts. She is heading towards the stairs, and looks up towards me. I'm wearing baggy camouflage pants and my black and grey pirate hoodie; perhaps not the best outfit for passing myself off as a professional health care provider.

I squeeze by the two homely ladies on the staircase and approach her, reaching into her dress to cup her right breast with my hand. I look her in the eyes and offer her a free breast exam. She smiles almost knowingly, and follows me as I put my arm around her waist and lead her deeper down the hallway, looking for a private spot to give her an exam while mentally contemplating the possibility of just doing it right here in the hallway. I mean, it is a health clinic, so this kind of thing should be common. I find an open blue door to an empty office. I look both ways down the hallway; the coast is clear. I lead her inside and sit her on the desk.

Babbling some nonsense in an attempt to sound like I work here, I turn around and close the door quietly, silently convincing myself that the owner of this office is unlikely to return. I twist the lock and turn around. To my surprise she has her back towards me and is already pulling her skimpy dress up around her body, revealing pantyhose but no underwear covering her bottom half. She stops with the dress half-way up around herself, turns her head, and mentions something about making it easier for the exam. I agree as I come up behind her, grabbing the lip of her pantyhose and pulling them down too. Strange, I notice a small triangle of coarse hair just above her ass; dismissing the oddity from my mind, I pull down the garment with a little effort. She turns around and sits back on the desk, revealing her sexy body in it's entirety. I smile my best smile and tell her that I am going to start by examining her clitoris. She spreads her legs, and I lick my fingers to begin the exam, while wondering what kind of phony medical test requires the insertion of a penis instead of a medical probe. Well, we've come this far, so I suppose I probably don't need to keep going with my lame facade.

Soldier of legend

I'm a soldier. Well, a crappy soldier. I've been training for a while, but never seem to get it all together. They didn't give me a rifle. Or wait, maybe I forgot to go get mine. Everyone else has one. I'm not wearing a tactical vest either like everyone else. It's not good to be an individual in the army...

We're sitting in the huge, dark canvas tent. Everyone is talking and having a good time. I'm silent, worrying about my predicament. Someone calls everyone outside. Feeling naked without the proper gear, I reluctantly follow the crowd.

Outside is an old hardwood forest. The trees have incredibly thick trunks that run up into the darkness. The ground is a soft bed of moss. Everyone is walking briskly, funneling towards the back of a well used green army truck and climbing inside. The instructors are standing here and there, ushering people along with sweeps of their arms. One yells at me.

"Where's your weapon soldier?"

"I didn't get one sir."

"Go back and get it now!"

Easily defeated, I return to the huge tent, and slump onto a bench. Face in hands, I wonder if there are other heroes somewhere, or if I must I continue my journey alone? I close my eyes...



Practically on the other side of the world, in a dense and snowy evergreen forest in China, stands a legendary man. If the cold eastern winds blowing flakes of ice into his face bothers him at all, he does not show it. Standing completely naked and motionless in a martial arts pose, the thick orange-brown sasquatch hair that covers most of his body flickers wildly. His face and his feet, I notice, are the only parts not covered by long hair; if you saw him with a passing glance, you would swear it was a yeti. Yet he is well known here for his heroic deeds, and nobody considers his appearance strange.

Suddenly he is alive with movement. A snap kick, seemingly lightning fast, knocks snow from the lower boughs of one of the many short pine trees surrounding him. After some jumping and wild punching, he brings himself to a different pose and stands still for a moment. Then flipping and leaping between the trees, his face covered with freezing snow yet somehow warmly glowing, he takes off at a fast sprint towards some distant point, the trees brushing him as he goes. I follow, as an observer with no body.

He passes the forests edge and keeps running, through a snowy field towards an icy river. He jumps gracefully across the river; I follow still, but know the river would normally be too wide for me to jump across. From the ether a body coalesces for me, like an invisible 20 foot tall reptilian kangaroo. As my partially embodied consciousness flies across the river, even in this form I lose faith in myself; there is no way I can make it. Yet my feet reach the other side, only dipping my heels in the cold water of the river for a split second before I am off again, chasing the hairy naked man.

He reaches a new forest, like the first one with slightly less snow on the trees, and enters. As I come to it, I notice to my left a cliffs edge that drops about 6 feet, which surrounds a canyon filled with people who look like soldiers. They are tightly packed together and milling about. Some are wearing helmets, some berets, some bandanas, and some with nothing on at all. They are not wearing the same gear or carrying the same weapons. To me they look more like a slightly organized militia than a real army. Many of them are men, and all of them appear to be white. I jump into the canyon and attempt to run along on tops of their heads to display my disdain for the army. However, they quickly disperse throughout the canyon as I jump, and so I only manage to plant my foot on one mans dark green beret before my next step plants me on the ground. As I rise up from the jump, I notice I am once again a human being, and that everyone is pointing their guns at me.

Without a thought, I kick the pistol from the hand of the man I had jumped on, and roll across the ground to pick it up. With incredible precision, I begin shooting the weapons out of the hands of the other soldiers surrounding me, while rolling and dodging as best as I can. Practically nobody is taking a shot; this makes sense, considering that they are in a canyon filled with their allies, so missing me could mean hitting their friends. They are on edge, to put it lightly. I fire the pistol and an AK-47 flies from the hand of a man wearing a helmet. Another shot disarms a young guy with a shotgun. Certainly they know by now that I'm only trying to protect myself an woudn't hurt them? Many of them aren't even pointing their guns at me. As I run I notice a girl in a bandana with two machine guns aimed at nowhere in particular. Mid-flip I give her a friendly look and raise my hand in a covert wave; she waves back in return.

My head swivels around to see that I have landed right in front of their leader. He looks french and has black hair and a pointy moustache, and his silver magnum is pointed point blank at me. I dodge the bullet in a nearly lightning fast flash. We engage in mortal combat for a split second, blocking each others punches and kicks with perfect precision. It ends in a flash with him on the ground and my hand outstretched to help him up. He grudgingly accepts, and our feud is put to rest forever, it seems.

Suddenly nobody really pays much attention to me. They have turned and started heading down a narrow corridor carved in this rocky canyon. I follow the crowd. The clear blue sky contrasts the earthy trench we walk through, broken wooden objects interspersed among the gravel and boulders seem to point to recent skirmishes that have taken place here. After walking a decent distance, I begin to wonder where we are heading. To the left I notice a small room carved out in the rock; I squeeze my way through the dry shattered boards that fail to protect it's contents. Inside I find a smaller shelf carved out in the rock, with a wooden machine gun resting within. I pick it up and examine it, noticing that it is broken. VanInderstein comes into the room, and I show him the gun. Showing off my amazing prowess, I quickly fix it by adding a metal barre that is laying on the ground. Now I am armed and dangerous. We leave the room via the open wooden door, and keep following the crowd.

Many miles pass by, and I finally arrive at an opening in the chasm-trench. It is a wide semi-circle canyon carved into the rock, with a rickety wooden bridge at the center leading across an endless pit to the other half of the circle on the other side. All the soldiers who have gotten here before me are already in tactical positions, hiding behind huge boulders and against the wall, pointing their weapons towards a small wooden tower at the other side of the bridge. I take the hint and haul ass towards a small boulder sitting just by the bridge. Once in position, I realize that I am not particularly well covered from the fire that will presumably be coming from the other side, and realize that nobody is firing at all.

Taking a closer look across the void, partially motivated by my severe vulnerability in my current position, I see the two snipers in the wooden tower. They are both wearing snow suits and skiing goggles: one dull blue and one dull green. They are too far away to be hit accurately by a normal machine gun, but I know that my modified gun will work just fine. I give a subtle look to the general lying prone beside me; apparently his sniper skills haven't done the trick. I fire two quick bursts, injuring both of our teams enemies. I get a small pat on the back from th general, and without a sound our soldiers begin hustling across the bridge. I take a deep breath and look around again.

This time, I notice a chain link fence behind me to the right, enclosing a yard that is overlooked by a rickety metal tower that is seemingly made up of old rusty scrap. The general points towards it; my next mission is confirmed. I run in a zig zag pattern towards the big metal gates, and find a hefty padlock blocking my entrance. No sweat, I put my small jack knife into my teeth and do a super flip over the top, easily avoiding the barbed wire that was supposed to stop infiltrators. Nobody shoots at me. I skirt the edge of the chain link fence to the left. Two brown skinned militants, wearing dirty scarfs around their necks, pop out of nowhere and challenge me. They don't have guns, and I decide to make it a fair fight; I drop my machine gun and spit out my knife, which sticks into the ground. It's time again for mortal combat.

Especially since you eat your own scoot!

We're living in a soap opera. Myself, a girl in a hospital gown, and a boy are visiting an empty bed inside the hospital. It is dark except for a single lamp on a table between two hospital cots that gives light to that hospital green color cloth that seems to cover almost everything in sight. When we got to the bed, we noticed that the extremely skinny old lady who is curled up in the fetal position, back towards us, looks completely dead. The girl with me looks forlorn and apprehensive as she moves her hand towards the lady for a poke. I put my hands on her shoulders before she makes it the whole way in order to stop her. "You don't need to see that" I say very quietly, as I steer her away, and towards the exit to this room which is more like a dark corridor lined with cots and curtains. She looks really, really dead.

We make it to the main corridor, which is brightly lit with yellow walls. There are a few doctors and nurses making their way through here, as well as some visitors standing abjectly. I approach a a nurse, who I know to be assigned to the dark hallway. "I think that stiff old lady is dead" I say bluntly. "No, she just doesn't like you people" the nurse replied. "Can you check on her anyways?". "I don't have to see her again until the morning" she said, slightly annoyed. Then she turned around and left us standing there.

The camera pans out to a small slab of rock floor, hurtling through space from the moon towards the ocean. On this strange meteor is a treasure chest, with a mans head on top of it. The head looks like Charlie Chaplin, complete with top hat. He hurtles into the ocean with his treasure chest. I jump in after him.

I plunge into the ocean and land on the sea floor. It is a dark and barren landscape made of rolling waves of gravel and sand. I look around for the treasure chest in hope of getting it for myself. I see the man head with it; he is carrying it with arms which have sprouted from his neck. I know he can breath in the water because the treasure chest has some sort of magic. I'm not sure how, but I seem to be able to breath as well. I don't question it, and follow after him as he disappears over a hill of sand.

It is hard to move down here. The water is salty and all my movements are resisted by the high pressure of the water above me. By the time I crest the hill, I have already lost him. I keep moving forward in a straight line; I'm not sure if I sense him in this direction, or if I actually know where he is headed. I pass by a single red coral on my left, like a leafless twiggy tree covered with pores. As I continue on there is a rock face to my right. I feel I am getting closer.

Eventually, there is a sandy alcove to the right, heading into the stone cliff. The mans head is sitting in front of it, and he still has the treasure chest. His familiar, an orange tabby cat, is here as well. I no longer feel the pressure of the water; it feels like I am above the surface, surrounded by an atmosphere of air. His cat communicates with me. I can not have the treasure. I think I am supposed to leave.

I turn around and start walking away from the cliff, and I come upon a steep hill, covered with old seaweed and an ancient crust. I can barely see what appears to be old steel bars underneath the crust; I start tearing at the gunk covering them and confirm my initial impression. I look behind me, towards the man's head with his cat, and yell "Hey, look what I found". I turn back towards the bars and am startled to see the face of an old woman peering at me from the darkness behind the corroded steel gate. Her skin is wrinkled and her grey hair is frizzy and unkempt. She has a crazy smile that shows rotten teeth, and intense eyes which stare intently at me. Her visage is completely motionless, and I feel uneasy being in her sight. I go to leave, and turn around to see a creature with purple and aquamarine skin and eye stalks, like a mix between a cat and a sea slug. It is the crazy lady's familiar. It lets me know that she has been locked up here for a very long time, and I get the impression that these two are not beings that I would like to have as friends.

I walk with the sea slug-cat, back to the alcove in the cliff. The man's head and the treasure chest are nowhere to be seen. I go around the corner of the alcove, out of sight of the crazy lady. The tabby cat is here as well, and it incites me to stomp on the sea slug-cat. I follow its instructions and kill the creature, but when I take a second glance, I see the tabby cat squashed dead on the ground and the sea slug-cat sitting happily. I realize that it must have used some sort of illusion to trick me into killing the man head's familiar. For some reason I don't retaliate, although I am upset about this. I just want to get away from this insanity; I turn away and leave the alcove.

As I emerge, the hidden undersea prison is in front of me, and I veer to the right. Now I notice that just beside it is a giant purple gorilla with rubbery skin, standing there motionless like a statue with two or three smaller but similar looking animals. I approach and stand before them, fixated. I sense the presence of someone else standing to the left of me. I begin chanting: "Oooga bundooba nooboo goombup...". It is like I am speaking in tongues; I know I am chanting the right thing, and can sense the approval of the person standing beside me. The gorillas have come to life, and is raising and lowering its arms along with my chant. Just beside the gorillas to the right, I now notice some anthropomorphic wolves standing as well. I'm not sure, but I think there are more animals standing in the line further to the right, but I do not look. Suddenly I wonder how I know this chant, and I lose confidence. The gorilla jumps up high and lands right in front of me and yells in a loud voice. I can barely make out the words, but there are subtitles which tell me what he is saying.

"WHAT THE FUCK DOO YOO THINK YOOR DOING???" he booms. I have bowed myself before him, almost unknowingly. " I...I don't know" I meekly reply. "I CAN'T HEAR WHAT YOOR SAYING!!! FUCK WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOO DOOING???" he yells at me again. There are tribal drums booming from behind him. I reply again, as loudly as I can muster my voice, "I'm not sure!". "YOO ARE NOT THE DISCIPLE OF ANY OF ME TWELVE ANIMAL SPIRITS!!!". "I'm sorry, please forgive me!". "COME, YOO MUST PLAY SOCCER WITH US!", and suddenly the animal spirits have withdrawn from the vicinity, to prepare for the game I suppose. I am very frightened to play soccer with them.

I turn to the person who was standing next to me; he is a white man, clean shaven with short reddish brown hair, and is wearing some ceremonial robes. I feel as if I know this man very well. "You should prepare yourself." I reach into the side pocket of my cargo pants, and pull out two granola bars. I open one and eat half of it in one bite. "Will this be enough?" I ask him. He shakes his head slightly and sighs. "Just go" he says to me. I am gone. It seems like a commercial break has arrived.

I see a bright scene: an ice cream shop. A skinny middle aged man with a black moustache and a mullet is singing a song about this ice cream store in a sort of high pitched, gay sounding voice. I think I work here, although it's my first day. The song is very funny (sadly I don't remember all the words). There is a green headed duck working behind the glass counter where the ice cream is stored. The last lines of the song that the man sings are "If you keep putting your feathers in the whipped cream you just might lose your job, Especially since you eat your own scoot!" Although I have never heard that term before, I know that scoot is a slang term for feces. The duck looks embarrassed. The commercial ends, and the screen goes black.

The post-apocalyptic conscience

My mind is in a foggy haze; nothing is clear. The world is in ruins. The bleak grey sky is not contrasted by the dried-earth brown buildings with their hollow, empty openings. Debris is scattered across the landscape, but no living things are evident in this city. I have just come from my old high school, although much has changed there. I am driving a car that must be made completely out of rust. The car doors are long gone, and I am completely naked. It doesn't bother me though; there is a certain feeling of freedom in it, for nobody is here to see, and if they were, they would not care.

I drive the car into a wide alley, manoeuvering around a forgotten dumpster, and park at the end perpendicular to the rows of towering abandoned buildings. The full moon peeks out from behind some clouds, white with a hint of fluorescent blue. I remove myself from the vehicle, and an ominous breeze blows paper and leaves towards a tall chain link fence at the end of the alleyway. Looking through the fence, I realize I am on the edge of a cliff, and I can see most of the destituted city sprawled out below me. I walk into the building to my right.

Oddly enough, I am not particularly suprised to see a family as I enter the building. There is a middle aged, blue eyed man with short dark hair and a moustache here, with his wife and older teenage daughter. They do not seem to notice my nakedness, and I feel no shame. The dirty white walls of their house are lit by electric lights, and all kinds of useless junk (mainly plastic childrens toys) occupy most of the anavailable space. He greets me warmly, and beckons me deeper inside the house.

It seems that I have arrived just in time, as they are about to cook a hearty meal. Food must be hard to come by in this post-apocalyptic world. We are going to feast upon their baby. I am in the lead as we walk into the long and narrow kitchen. There are pots and pans, and more toys piled on the counter, with a lone window above the sink that shows only blackness from outside. I feel suddenly vulnerable, and turn around to see that the man is holding a large knife. I stay facing him, for fear that I have been lured to my own slaughter, but he assures me that no such thing shall occur. The child is laying naked in the sink, with soft white cloth resting between him and the cold metal.

I tell the man we should have some fun and poke holes in him with a scalpel before killing him, and the man seems eager and excited. He hands me the tiny blade, and I poke him once in the chest. It isn't as enjoyable at all, and I get that feeling that occurs after you've done something which you cannot undo. A voice beckons me from outside the room; there is a phone call, and it is for me. I thankfully take the excuse to escape, leaving the man in the kitchen to finish what I have started.

His wife leads me to the back room. It is cramped in here, and there is a brown couch along the wall, and a window divided into four panes of glass. A pay phone is nailed to the wall, right beside the doorway. I pick the phone up off of the cluttered desk. The voice on the other end sounds familiar, yet odd, and I am not totally certain who it belongs to. He explains how the government had infected him with vampirism, and now he is hiding out so they can't find him again. His two little sisters ran away from him, but he knows they are still hiding outside in the woods around the house he is in. As we talk more, I become more and more certain that it is Aaron on the other end of the phone (although he does sound different).

I ask how I can get a hold of him again. He tells me that his number is 1111-THROAT. I know that this isn't the actual phone number though, since there are too many numbers; he does not want to say the number outright because the government is listening in on our conversation. So he starts giving me hints to help decode the real phone number. First he says something about a submarine, but I miss the message because at that moment the mans daughter comes in the room and starts talking to me. Trying my hardest to listen to the distant voice on the telephone, I ask him to repeat himself; this time he mentions something about U, but once again I fail to hear everything he is saying because the girl is talking to me, and now the woman is shouting from another room that dinner is ready to eat. I give up; I'm sure I know where he is staying anyways (the house we went to buy drugs at years before, located in the middle of nowhere). The phone call is ended.

I leave the back room, and tell the mans wife that I just need to go to the bathroom first. I find the toilet in the kitchen; the man is slouched beside it, looking dazed and distant. I lift the toilet seat, and see a big metal ladel resting inside. There is diluted blood all over the sides of the toilet bowl, and I can smell blood and guts. The man looks very disappointed and I ask him if it was what he expected it to be. He shakes his head, downtrodden.